


What Is Owed

by hollimichele



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-07
Updated: 2014-02-07
Packaged: 2018-01-11 11:34:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1172572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollimichele/pseuds/hollimichele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I am only trying to see to an inheritance.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Is Owed

In the north of France, there was an old widow, who lived on the outskirts of her village and earned her bread by taking in washing. There are many such. Her children, those who were living, sent her money when they could, which was not often. Few had cause to think of her, and she would have been surprised indeed to be considered of any importance.

But one day a man came to the village, and asked for her by name. He was a trim and polished man in an expensive coat-- someone’s man-of-business, a solicitor or steward. Not the sort of man who came looking for old peasant women, or who ever carried good news when he did.

So the widow was wary, and short with the man-of-business, and did not, at first, wish to answer the questions he asked.

“Have you children?” he wanted to know, and with a frown she answered, “Four, that are living.” 

“And how many in all?” he asked, and she answered, “Seven.”

“You have married twice, have you not?” the man asked, and she admitted to it, and this prompted a further question: “Before you first married, what was your name?”

This she answered only with great reluctance, for someone who wanted that name could not, she thought, mean her well. But the man was insistent, and when she demanded to know what he was after, he answered, “I am only trying to see to an inheritance.”

No one in the widow’s family had ever had anything worthwhile to leave anyone else, so she supposed this meant he had the wrong person after all, and when she gave her name he would leave her be. 

But when she said it, his face went alight, and he said “Ah! My good woman, my employers have been looking for you for some time.”

Then things went very strange. The man-of-business produced a coach ticket and traveling papers, to Paris of all places, and said that they were for her. When she protested that she could not possibly go to Paris, he said that all her expenses would be provided for. When she asked how the rent on her cottage would be paid, while she was halfway across the country, he said that he had been told to discharge any debts preventing her from making the journey.

So it was, some days later, that the widow found herself in a fine carriage, watching the streets of the city roll by with wide eyes. The houses they passed grew finer, and finer still, and then perhaps a little less fine but, to the widow’s untrained eye, rather handsomer for it, before the carriage came to a stop. 

“We are here,” said the man-of-business, “and my employers are expecting you.”

They were ushered inside by a footman, and the widow found herself in the entry-hall of a pretty, comfortable house, with paintings on the walls and light, bright colors everywhere. A wide flight of carpeted stairs led up and out of sight; a maid bustled by with a tray of coffee things. 

“You’ve come!” said a voice that came from the top of the stair, and the widow’s bewildered gaze fell upon a young gentleman, dressed correctly and well, with tousled hair and a dreamer’s eyes. “We’re so very glad to have found you, you’ve no idea.”

“I cannot imagine why,” the widow said, feeling overawed and thoroughly confused, and the young gentleman shot a sharp look at his man-of-business.

“You’ve not told her?” he asked.

“I thought it best that Madame explain it herself,” the man-of-business answered.

“Well, that is fair enough; it is an unlikely-sounding story no matter where it comes from,” said the young gentleman. He turned back to the widow. “But then, you must not have the faintest idea who we are, I am terribly sorry. My name is Pontmercy, and-- well, it is my wife’s tale to tell. Come, she is in the drawing-room.”

The man-of-business excused himself, and, even more bewildered, the widow allowed Monsieur Pontmercy to take her arm as if she were a lady, and not a work-roughened old peasant woman with a stooped back and red hands. He guided her to a set of doors, which he opened, and ushered her through.

The scene before her was lovely enough for a painting, and indeed such a portrait hung elsewhere in the house. A young woman sat before the fire with a child upon her knee, a pretty curly-headed creature of perhaps two or three years. Beside her, a nursemaid was bent over her embroidery, listening with half an ear to the story the woman was reading the child. The lady glanced up at the opening of the door, and her eyes widened to see the widow on her husband’s arm.

“Oh, you’re here! I am so very glad-- darling, we must stop for now, but if you like, Azelma will read you the rest. Won’t you?” she asked the nursemaid, who nodded with a smile, and rose to scoop the child into her arms.

The widow was guided to a comfortable seat before the fire. “I hardly know where to begin,” said Madame Pontmercy. “Have you been told anything at all?”

“Only that your man meant to see to an inheritance,” answered the widow, “but whose, I have no idea.”

“Then I had better start from the beginning,” said Madame Pontmercy. “My father, you see, adopted me in--rather irregular circumstances. As a result, he and I lived for a time under names that were not our own. I did not learn the full truth until he died, four years ago, and since then I have been looking for you.”

“Whatever for?” asked the widow. “Who was your father?”

“I suppose I did not start from the beginning, after all,” said Madame Pontmercy. “Or rather, that is where it began for me. For my father, it began, I suppose, when he left behind the name of Jean Valjean.”

The widow was stunned into silence for a long moment. Finally she said, “It began before that, I think.”

“He was your brother, was he not?” asked Monsieur Pontmercy. The widow nodded, a shaky little motion. “Had you no news of him, in all this time?”

“I thought him thirty years dead, or more,” said the widow, who had been born Jeanne Valjean. “They sent a notice from-- from Toulon, the first time they added to his sentence, but when no other word came, I thought him dead.”

“He served nineteen years, all told,” said Madame Pontmercy. “He never breathed a word of it to me, while he lived. But he left me a letter, and when I learned of you I knew I had to find you.”

The full explanation took much longer, and even at the end of it Jeanne did not fully comprehend. “We think he searched for you, off and on, and for your children; there was evidence of it in his papers,” said Monsieur Pontmercy. “But he could not look openly without risking discovery. We began where he left off, and have had, as you see, more success.”

This was the sticking point, for Jeanne-- the thing she could not grasp. “But why look at all? What could you possibly need from me, or from my children?” She could not fathom that this wealthy, happy young couple, alight with good fortune, should ever want to dirty their hems with such as her.

It was Madame Pontmercy who answered. “You are family, so far as I am concerned, and my husband and I have precious little of that. We wanted you to know that if there was anything you needed-- anything we could do-- you need only ask. We know your life cannot have been easy, after my father was taken from you.”

“No,” said Jeanne. “No, it was not.”

“There is no undoing that,” said Madame Pontmercy. “Such things cannot be undone. But the road ahead may be smoother, if you wish. For my father’s sake, I could give you no less.”

Jeanne did not know what to say. She wondered at Monsieur Pontmercy, for his willingness to even acknowledge his wife’s past, much less offer support to the evidence of it. When she found her voice again, she said as much, but he only laughed, a little hollow, and pressed his wife’s hand.

“I owe my father-in-law a debt, as well,” he said. “One I cannot repay, in this life. And at any rate it’s Cosette’s money; I could hardly begrudge her spending it in such a way.”

Jeanne wondered at that, as well; Madame Pontmercy had mentioned that her father had done well for himself, but little more. It was difficult to reconcile the young man of her memories with the life the Pontmercys had outlined, even in its bare bones. Still, she dared hope, just a flicker of it, and ventured to ask: “Then-- my grandchildren-- there is no money to send them to school. Could you, perhaps--?”

“That is easily done,” said Madame Pontmercy. “But do not be afraid to ask for yourself, as well. There is no reason for you to take in laundry any longer. Are you happy in the village where you live? Should you prefer to live here in Paris, or with one of your children? We must write to them, as well, all four of them-- I should like to meet them, very much, if they are willing to make the journey--”

As Madame Pontmercy and her husband spoke, Jeanne began to understand the scale of what her niece-- she supposed she could call her that-- was offering. When Monsieur Pontmercy said said “And I suppose we ought to ask-- your grandchildren, have any of them any inclination to the law, or medicine, or any such profession? Only it is best to know what sort of tutors they may need--” Jeanne surprised them both by bursting into tears.

“Oh, I am sorry--” began Madame Pontmercy, but Jeanne shook her head, waving it off.

“I am quite well,” she said, wiping her eyes, “it is only the shock of it. I am fine.”

“It is too much, all at once,” said Madame Pontmercy. “I should have realized. You’ve traveled a great way, and have had altogether too many surprises. Come and have a little supper, and a good night’s sleep; and I should like you to meet my daughter. She has had no grandmama, until now.”

Jeanne thought herself a poor substitute for one, but she allowed the Pontmercys to help her to her feet and lead her from the room. She was dizzy with all the things she felt, without words for any of it-- except, perhaps, for the unfamiliar flutter of hope in her heart.

She had not thought of her brother often; had done her best not to, in fact, for the better part of thirty years. Now she did, and without the familiar pang. She tried to picture him not as the young man she remembered, but as the man he had grown to be, the father and benefactor, the distant architect of her sudden happiness. 

She could not quite manage it. But she could see what his life had wrought, all around her; perhaps that was enough.


End file.
